3 'fire' haiku from "Haiku: Poetry Ancient & Modern

Jackie Hardy, Katherine Gallagher & Cicely Hill

I continue along the narrow road of haiku measuring my footsteps with the precise, crystallised magic of its sparse cinematography. I think the time demands it - I seek the epiphany of photographic truth, the quiet contemplation of life and its passing in the synecdoche of found images. I have shared poems from Haiku: Poetry Ancient and Modern before. This anthology is a gift, bringing together haiku both classical and contemporary. The sharpening of vision, and the slowing down of time and breath is the thread that knits them together.

The anthologist and haiku poet Jackie Hardy uses a typology of the five elements in Taoist cosmology as an organising principle - wood, fire, earth, metal and water. I chose poems from ‘fire’ today. The image that is used in the section separator (The Art Achive, from M. Titsungh’s illustration) is a raging constellation of fiery mounds. No points for guessing what it immediately invoked. The heat rising from pyres is precipitating on the glass spectacles of this country’s apathy. But we are rallying - from oxygen langars to social media mobilisation, from the efforts of civil society organisations to kind individuals, despite the state’s fervent attempts to stifle the spread of “negativity” and real data.

The first haiku flames with “last year’s news”. The second one reminds us of things we do as a community to collectively come to terms with our grief, and find faith (honestly I thought of O Paalanhaare, and the helplesness of that moment in the world of the film Lagan). The last haiku hits deep, planting its stake at the centre of the darkness that envelopes us as we confront death.

I share this poetry with you as a fellow traveller would share some curd rice on a long dusty road.
Stay with these, as I have, let the layers unravel slowly.